


Now and Always

by furiosity



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-21 04:50:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17036978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/pseuds/furiosity
Summary: Natsume and Tanuma spend a quiet winter afternoon on the sofa.





	Now and Always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miaou Jones (miaoujones)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/gifts).



> Happy holidays! I hope you like this!
> 
> Many thanks to A for the beta.

The Book of Friends has been closed for thirty years.

The memory of it is an abstraction, like listening to a friend recount some escapade from your childhood. You know it happened because your friend doesn't have a reason to make it up, and you feel a vague, affectionate nostalgia, but you just can't place yourself in that place or that time.

At times, like now, this vagueness astonishes Takashi -- he _knows_ that the Book of Friends was everything to him once -- his whole life was the orbit around what remained of Natsume Reiko's life. Then the final name went back to its owner, the book fluttered closed, and Natsume's awareness of the nearby world vanished like an errant strand of spider-silk carried on the wind. His spiritual strength had been Reiko's all along; that was why the youkai always mistook him for her. Natsume always thought that deep inside, Reiko regretted having taken all those names. Maybe her regret bound her spirit to the bloodline until an heir was born who could withstand it and make things right.

Nearly everyone around Takashi who knew about his immense spiritual power saw the loss as a tragedy, but not Takashi. Not being inundated by youkai every waking moment meant he was no longer a danger to those he loved, and he could follow his heart right to Tanuma Kaname's door. Which he did, and the door was open. Beyond the threshold, Kaname was waiting.

The minute hand on the living room clock shifts forward with a soft _click_ , and Natsume startles out of his near-doze. Kaname's still next to him on the sofa, his right hand in Takashi's while he flips through his latest manuscript, balanced on one knee, with his left.

Takashi takes in the sight of Kaname's face, the absent-minded eyes that always light up softly when he looks at Takashi. Decades have passed, but that's never changed. It fills Takashi's chest up so much he wants to say something, _anything_ , but he can't even formulate it in thought form, let alone words. _I love you_ feels like a cop-out, a neat little mouthful that doesn't even begin to describe what Kaname means to him.

They were among the first to get married in their prefecture after the Diet formally recognised same-sex marriage three years ago, but that was just for practical reasons. They've been together since high school, through university and their halting first steps as working adults, building their careers, all the way to Takashi taking the administrator position at an orphanage two towns away and Kaname deciding to write full-time so they wouldn't have to be apart.

"What's on your mind?" Kaname asks, a worry-crease between his eyebrows.

"I was thinking about high school," Takashi says, gesturing vaguely in front of himself to try and convey 'that whole Book of Friends business' without naming it. "You know."

Kaname nods. "Miss those days, huh?"

Takashi takes a long look at Kaname, trying to remember what he looked like back then. He can't. They were so very young when they met; little more than children. Takashi doesn't often think about how they met, when he fell in love, or where their first kiss happened. Those things are important, and he remembers them well, but they're just moments in time. Their friendship, growing to love Kaname in every meaning of the word, and a thousand promises made, unspoken, on nights they rode their bikes out into the barley fields and watched the stars fade into morning light: these are the things he carries in his heart.

Kaname has always been Kaname, and no matter how the years have changed them both, Takashi still sees the same person every time he looks at him. That's all that's ever going to matter.

"Not at all," he says. Kaname looks a little startled. "Sorry," Takashi adds, sheepish. "I was woolgathering. I mean I don't miss it at all. Do you?"

"I miss not having to think twice about taking the stairs down two at a time," Kaname says.

"Being young, you mean," Takashi supplies. "You miss being young."

"Funny, right? Back then all I could think about was getting older. Turning twenty, for a start."

"That made two of us." Twenty meant freedom to do what they wanted, which back then was to rent a place together and spend every free moment having sex.

"We're not that old," Kaname offers, somewhat dubiously.

"Sure," Takashi agrees. "Life begins at fifty."

"We're not fifty yet."

Takashi snickers. "So our lives are only just about to begin!" he declaims, with feeling.

They wait on the sofa, quietly watching dusk ease through the windows and begin to fill the corners of the house.

The front door slides open with a rattle and Nyanko-sensei -- or Grandpa Madara, as he's known to the children at the orphanage -- mutters curses under his breath in the front entrance. He's been happy to wear his human old man form since finding out how easily that got him admitted to izakayas of all stripes, but he _really_ hates wearing shoes.

"You stink of booze," Takashi tells him as he shuffles into the living room.

"Never mind that, what time are we leaving for the Fujiwaras'?" Nyanko-sensei asks, transforming into a cat and hopping up on the sofa next to Kaname. "I want to eat Touko-san's cooking."

Kaname gives Nyanko-sensei's back an absent-minded scratch. "You should really stop coming with us. You'll be older than that Guinness Records cat soon, what's his name?"

"I'm already a hell of a lot older than him," Nyanko-sensei counters. "Also, I am not a cat."

"The Fujiwaras don't know that," Takashi says. "Every time you come over with us, Touko-san makes a fuss over how you haven't changed a bit. It's suspicious."

"You're overthinking it," Nyanko-sensei says. "Anyway, I'll outlive all of you losers, so I don't see why I should miss out on good food just to pretend like I won't."

Takashi and Kaname look at each other. Takashi's _trying_ to find the flaw in the old man's logic, but he can't -- and he can tell Kaname's coming up just as empty. They share a rueful grin, and Takashi squeezes Kaname's fingers, settling back into the sofa's warmth.

Even after the Book of Friends was empty, Nyanko-sensei stayed with Takashi, insisting that it was even more important than ever to protect him now that Takashi couldn't tell a youkai from a paper towel. He never elaborated why he still wanted an empty Book of Friends or why youkai would target a simple, average human, and Takashi will never ask. If Nyanko-sensei wants to stay with him, that's good enough for him.

He's a simple, average human living in the Japanese countryside with his husband and their sort-of cat. That's all he wants. The rest of the world can do what it will.

Takashi headbutts Kaname's shoulder and gets to his feet. "We'd better get going," he says. "Touko-san will worry if it gets too dark while we're on the road."

"Plus the food will get cold," Nyanko-sensei puts in, trotting back to the entrance and giving his old-man shoes a disdainful look as he paws the sliding door open, letting in the winter breeze.

A soft drizzle pelts the windshield as Kaname pulls the SUV out onto the road. Somewhere in the distance, a train blares its horn as it passes a crossing.

The Natsume-Tanuma family sets off on their annual winter hometown visit.

-fin-


End file.
